Why a simple phone call can save your real estate transaction

A home is not an online order: what you risk if you stick to messages only

Buying or renting a home is nothing like placing an order with an online store. At stake are tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, a 20–30 year loan, documents that must be checked, deadlines, contractual clauses and, above all, the responsibility of making a decision that you cannot “return within 14 days”. In this context, the way you communicate with the owner or the real estate agent becomes essential.

Romania is, moreover, a country of homeowners. According to Eurostat data cited by Radio România Actualități, approximately 95% of Romanians live in owner-occupied homes, the highest percentage in the European Union, while the EU average is 69% owners and 31% tenants. (romania-actualitati.ro) This appetite for ownership makes real estate decisions among the most important in a family’s life.

At the same time, Banca Națională a României shows in the Financial Stability Report of June 2024 that approximately two thirds of the loans granted to the population are secured by real estate, and any deterioration in the quality of these loans can affect financial stability. (bnr.ro) In other words, the way you choose your home and your loan is not just a personal matter but has broader economic implications.

In this landscape, many buyers or tenants prefer to send only short messages through listing platforms, avoiding phone conversations. It is convenient but costly. Without real dialogue, it is very easy to miss critical information about price, documents, neighborhood or financing risks. The phone call remains the fastest filter between a serious offer and a problematic one.

A single 10-minute call can save you weeks of unnecessary viewings and thousands of euros lost in an ill-advised transaction.

Why trust matters in real estate transactions

A successful real estate transaction starts from trust. Whether you are talking to the owner or to an agent, you need to know who you are talking to, what experience they have and how transparent they are regarding the property.

A study conducted by Imobiliare.ro and Unlock Research, on a representative sample of buyers and sellers active in the residential market in 2022, shows that over 66% of participants interacted with a real estate agent, and 72% of them declared themselves satisfied with the collaboration. (hub.imobiliare.ro) This level of satisfaction indicates that where there is direct communication, including by phone, trust increases.

In the absence of trust, the perceived risk related to a mortgage or a long-term rental is amplified. Data from BNR show that the non-performing rate of standard mortgage loans increased in 2023, and the central bank estimates for the 2024–2025 period higher probabilities of default also in the segment of loans to households. (agerpres.ro) These trends make a careful assessment of the home and the contract all the more important, something that cannot be done exclusively through text messages.

The phone conversation is the first concrete step to test how serious your counterpart is, to see how they answer difficult questions, how coherent their explanations are and whether they are willing to provide additional documents and details.

What you can find out over the phone that no listing will tell you

An online listing, no matter how complete it seems, will never capture all relevant details. In addition, much of the information changes quickly: the availability of the property, the room for negotiation, the legal situation or the financing conditions.

Over the phone you can clarify, in a few minutes, essential aspects:

• The context of the sale or rental: why the home is being sold or rented, how long it has been on the market, whether there have been other serious offers.
• The property’s real availability: whether it is still available or the listing has not been updated, whether viewings can be scheduled in the desired period.
• Room for negotiation: the estimated negotiation margin, special conditions (cash payment, flexible moving dates, etc.).
• Documents and legal situation: existence of registration in the land book, any encumbrances, mortgages or disputes, cadastral status.
• Details “invisible” in photos: noise level, neighborhood, smells, actual orientation, condition of utilities and installations.
• Compatibility of expectations: whether the home matches your lifestyle (pets, children, working from home, etc.).

BNR emphasizes in its reports that real estate transaction activity has seen fluctuations in recent years, with significant declines in the number of transactions and mortgage loans in certain periods. (bnr.ro) In a slower market, direct dialogue allows you to better understand the pressure to sell or rent and to correctly assess your bargaining power.

How to use the phone smartly when looking for a home

The best approach combines the advantages of online listing platforms with the efficiency of phone discussions. You do not need to give up the comfort of messaging, but the phone should be the natural step after you have selected a few relevant offers.

You can proceed as follows:

• Filter online by area, budget and type of home so as not to waste time on irrelevant discussions.
• Send a first short, polite message to check availability and request a phone number or a time slot for a call.
• Set up a 5–10 minute call in which you ask clear questions about the property’s documents, the home’s history, monthly costs and price flexibility.
• Immediately write down the key answers and later verify the information received (for example, through a land book excerpt or by consulting a financial advisor).
• Decide whether it is worth scheduling a viewing or whether the offer does not match your needs and you can rule it out from the start.

Depending on the answers received over the phone, you will have a short list of properties that are truly worth seeing. Thus, you reduce the number of trips, use your time efficiently and minimize the risk of emotional decisions taken on the spot.

The phone, the first filter before the loan and the signature

Before you get to the bank or the notary, phone discussions with the owner or the agent help you avoid situations where you fall in love with a home that is legally or financially difficult to purchase.

Recent BNR reports show that risks to financial stability remain high amid internal imbalances and geopolitical tensions, and the probability of default on loans granted to households is increasing over the next 12 months. (agerpres.ro) In this context, entering into a mortgage without having clarified in detail the home’s situation is an unnecessary exposure.

By phone you can check in advance whether the asking price is realistic compared to the market, find out whether the seller accepts the financing conditions you need and establish from the outset which documents will be prepared for the bank or notary. Thus, the face-to-face meeting is no longer a preliminary discussion but a final, well-prepared step.

Ultimately, although technology allows you to quickly filter thousands of listings, the real estate transaction remains a human interaction. The phone is not a whim but the tool through which you turn the cold data in a listing into reliable information on which you can base a responsible decision for you and your family.